Miscellaneous Poems 3

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I remember Christmas nights

With brightly colored twinkling lights

Seen through cozy window panes

While driving down country lanes

Red and green, yellow, blue

Large and small, every hue

Strewn on mantle, strewn on sill

Mindless of the winter's chill

Best of all, the Christmas trees

Heralding Christmas eve

Presents wrapped underneath 

Watched over by a Christmas wreath

As we drove, we sang along

To old familiar Christmas songs

Happy just to be together

Welcoming the winter weather

Icicles and fluffy snow

Everywhere that we would go

I remember Christmas nights

With brightly colored twinkling lights

Humans came from nature; the latter so much older

Lichen shades of green and brown; a palette on a boulder...

And everywhere I see within the palette’s landscape view

Colors spread on canvas in pastoral, pastel hue...

Aboard a fun gondola ride

We drifted up the mountainside

At Silver Mountain, Idaho;

One summer day, long ago

One not built for folks with skis

(on snowy days, mid-winter freeze)

We, instead, with summer breeze

Soared above the towering trees

Passing silent, sitting still

Thru field and forest, cliff and hill

Driven by some distant power

Clacking past each lofty tower

Almost like the way the years

Pull us along, while turning gears

And cables take us on a ride

Through lifetimes stretching far and wide

Then, when years and months and days

Have passed, we stop, and pause to gaze

At landscapes spread out far below

Where distance makes the whole world slow

I want to find a way to view

Each phase of life that I've passed through

With thankfulness instead of greed

And know that I no longer need

To hover, hanging, fixed in space

Stopped above a certain place

But rather, hop back on, and ride

Back down the lovely mountainside

In Quidi Vidi village, on an inlet by the sea

In a quaint old wooden building, there's a cozy brewery

From where the men sail out to sea beneath the northern sky

To fish for ancient iceberg ice, slowly drifting by

The icebergs are like sailors, too, roaming on the sea

In search of new horizons, adventurous and free

Like Viking ships of long ago, head out the open door

Of the rolling Greenland sea, and sail away towards Labrador

The sailors haul the bergs back to the Quidi Vidi bay

And melt them to prepare their beer the old-fashioned way

Of Newfoundland, where they infuse all the drinks they brew

With sturdy laughter, good hard work, and love of family, too

So enjoy this magic bottle, cast in cobalt ocean blue

And when you pop the cap off, just imagine that it's true

That it's been waiting to be sipped, a thousand years or more

Sipping, tasting, listening, that's what iceberg beer is for...

Did the tree grow round a rock

Did the rock, then, tumble out

And, as it did, did that unblock

A hole? I guess I have a doubt...

For though I saw them both, right there,

An easy-to-imagine Easter tomb,

I must point out, just to be fair

The rock did not quite match, in shape, the room

What child wouldn't wish to see

The Easter story, with their eye?

And hear the mighty rock roll free

Perhaps while seeing light flash from the sky?

I wish that I had seen it roll,

As tiny angels pushed aside,

The rock that blocked that little hole

With opening behind it gaping wide!

But though I felt a little thrill

This cave was likely once a root

With rock poised, up a tiny hill

Perched by a little sandy chute

And then, as root began to rot,

The ancient rock began to roll

And that is how we finally got

To here - a rock beside a hole!

The wind, it came inside last night, the wind, it came inside

And though I tried to keep it out

Instead, it whirled and swirled about

And tossed the curtains in a fit

And laughed at me before it quit

It acted like the door was open wide

The wind, it came inside

The rain dripped on the floor, it did, the rain dripped on the floor

I thought that I'd stay warm and dry

As flashing storm came thundering by

I tried to block the rain, and yet

It left a puddle, cold and wet

And though I thought I'd closed the door

The rain dripped on the floor